Indian elephants mate during Indian monsoon season...This eventually lead to "elephant" becoming an animal calendar marker for "monsoon season"...
Which is why Indra, the thunder and rain god, rides on a white (cloud) elephant...
Articles about elephant calendar marker, India: "Musth", "Samantabhadra", "Modesty", "Ganesha"...
2nd century BC relief of Yakshi, a nature spirit associated with water, trees and the fertility of the earth, standing on Makara. Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh...
What is Makara and why is Yakshi standing on Makara? Cause rain/water = fertility...
Relief from the 199-100 BC stupa from Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, India, depicting Makara, the "mythical being" and a vehicle of Varuna, the ex god of rain and water...Actually a complex animal calendar marker for monsoon season...Pic from: vmis.in
Makara has many forms, from a simple gharial, fish eating, crocodile, used as a mount by Varuna...
...to truly incredible composite beings. Like this one...
But interestingly, all the animals that form main Makara parts either mate or give birth or migrate during the monsoon season, and can be used as animal calendar markers for the monsoon season... I talked about Makara in my post "Makara"...
Makara is one of the best examples of how complex animal calendar markers are formed from overlapping reproductive behaviour of many different animal species...
And how they are then morphed into "mythical beings" linked to gods which control the part of the year these calendar marker once marked...
Also check this article about "Proto Durga", which talks about gharial crocodile as calendar marker, which probably predates Makara, and was the original vehicle of the rain god, before Indra arrived on his elephant...
Which is why Yakshi stands on Makaras...
Yakshas have intimate connection with (life giving) waters: "Yakshas control, not so much the waters as mere waters, but that essence in the waters which is one...with the seed (sperm) in living beings"...
Rain as semen of the Sky father which fertilises Earth mother an creates life...A common "mythological" theme in areas where we have dry and wet season...
Anyway, I think this is kind of interesting...To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
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